Blue Jean Table Runner Tutorial

You will need:

Lightweight cardboard

Pen

Scissors

Thread

Old Jeans

10 squares of contrasting material.

Sewing Machine.

Start with a circle pattern around 7 inches in diameter. 

I used one of my small plates and it worked fine.

Cut a cardboard pattern

or just trace around the plate.  

You will need 10 of these for the runner.

Trace the circles on the wrong sides of the jeans and cut out.

Hint:  I trace a bunch, cut them into smaller pieces and cut them out in the evenings in front of the TV.

Now this part is a little tricky.

You might need some of your high school geometry skills.

You need a pattern for a square that fits inside of your circle and touches all four corners.

I used my ruler for my rotary cutter and laid it down on my circle pattern

and marked the circle pattern.

Mine worked out to five inches.

This is the end of the math, I promise.

If you have a simple graphics program on your computer, you should be able to make a pattern

from that also. 

and

if you absolutely cannot figure all this out.

email me and I will send you a file of some patterns.

or

if you can figure it out and just don't want to,

email me anyway

and I will send them to you.

Ok, hardest part done.

I like to have a variety of jeans shades and textures.

After they are cut out,

arrange them  into pairs

and trace the square inside one of the circles in each pair.

Pin them right sides together

and sew one edge together

on each pair.

Press open the seams and you should have five pair that look

like this.

The place two pair right sides together and trace a square inside one circle

on one pair so that you have a guideline to go by.

Sew the two pairs together.

You should now have two sets of four

and an extra set of two.

Sew the two sets of four together

and then sew the last set of two onto them.

Press all seams apart

and

you will have

something that looks like this.

Then press in the edges.

I use a little Niagara spray starch to hold them a little better.

Open the flaps and pin the squares inside closing the flaps over top of the fabric.

Back to the machine and zig zag stitch everything.

I find it easier to go down through the center first.

It eliminates a lot of pins and a lot of bulk.

I sew it in this manner,

not so much turning that way.

Here is what the back looks like

at this point.

Zig Zag everything, press it all again,

and you are done!

Just some ideas to think outside the box.

This pillow was made from a pair of khakis.

To match a bedroom.

This is the blanket that I made several years ago.

Don't look too close,

it has been washed and is really starting to fray in some places.

Think tote bags and pillows.

Small t-shirt logos in the middle of the squares.

There are tons of possibilities!

If you make anything from this, I would love to see it.

Send me a pic, leave a  comment with the link, etc.